The City of Vancouver has set the lofty goal of becoming the greenest city in the world[4] by 2020 and, judging by their latest green innovation, they are thinking outside of the box[5] to get there. To help up their green quotient, Vancouver has started paving its streets with recycled plastic. The city teamed up with GreenMantra[6] of Toronto to melt together old plastic and asphalt to create a paving mixture that is much better for the environment than traditional asphalt.

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Traditional asphalt requires extremely high temperatures to allow it to flow easily, but by mixing in a recycled plastic binder, the asphalt flows at a much lower temperature, requiring up to 20-percent less fuel to produce. City engineer Peter Judd estimates that this could translate into a reduction of 300 tons of greenhouse gases[8] per year. Using the plastic binder also reduces the amount of vapors released into the air when the asphalt is laid.

The process costs about 1 to 3-percent more than traditional asphalt paving, but as the supply increases, costs are expected to drop. The environmentally friendly paving[9] doesn’t look any different than traditional paving, and the city is currently testing the mixture before deploying it citywide.